There is a version of self-improvement that is actually self-avoidance, and it has gotten very good at hiding.
The growth-mindset literature taught a generation of people that you can get better at anything. This is true. The literature did not say what to do with that information, and the default human response turned out to be: therefore I should constantly be getting better at something. This sounds productive. In practice it has become one of the most sophisticated procrastination habits available.
Here is what it looks like. A founder has a hard decision in front of them. Maybe a hire that is not working. Maybe a product direction that is failing. Maybe a conversation they have been avoiding for six weeks. Instead of making the decision, they read a book about decision-making. They listen to a podcast about hard conversations. They take a course on leadership. They journal about their fear of confrontation. They emerge feeling improved.
The decision is still not made.
The growth-mindset trap is when the feeling of progress replaces the fact of progress. You are learning. You are stretching. You are doing the work on yourself. None of that is wrong, and most of it would be admirable in a vacuum. But there is no vacuum. There is a list of things you said you were going to do, and the list is getting older, and the self-improvement is the wallpaper you have hung over it.
The tell is this: ask someone what they are working on. If they describe a process of becoming, in great detail, with vocabulary borrowed from three different productivity systems, and they cannot tell you what they shipped this week, you are looking at the trap.
The real version of growth mindset is much less photogenic. It is doing the thing badly the first time. Watching it not work. Doing it badly again. Slowly getting less bad. There is no book to read in the middle of this. The book would not help. The only thing that helps is more reps, which is unglamorous and slow and does not produce content for anybody's feed.
What broke is that improvement as identity started competing with improvement as outcome. The former is infinitely scalable, because you can always be improving. The latter is finite, because you either built the thing or you did not. The former is a personality. The latter is a result. Most people who think they are doing the latter are doing the former.
The way out is to set the bar at shipped, not at learned. Did the conversation happen? Did the feature go live? Did the customer get called? If yes, you can take credit. If no, you cannot deduct credit for having journaled about why it is hard.
Self-improvement is supposed to be a means. It became an end. The end was always the work. The work is still waiting.